IDENTITY thieves stole the personal details of a Styvechale man and used them to defraud online loan company Wonga.

Now the man is warning others to be on their guard against fraudsters using the firm.

The first he heard about the loan was when he received a letter asking him to start repaying several hundred pounds.

He contacted Wonga and found out that because they believed he was in arrears he had been blacklisted by credit agencies.

Wonga – which offer loans at annual interest rates of around 4,000 per cent – say they investigated the man’s fraud claim and it was resolved in less than 24 hours.

The loan has been written off and the credit rating black marks have since been removed.

The scam victim said: “People need to be made aware of the fact that this sort of thing is happening.

“It wasn’t a great experience – I was passed from pillar to post and no-one would tell me anything.

“I still haven’t had an apology or an explanation as to how this happened.

“I spoke to one person who asked for my e-mail address. When I gave it to them they told me it didn’t tally with the one they had.

“Funny that, seeing as I’ve never had any contact with them before and I’m ringing them to say I’ve been the victim of identity fraud.

“Their customer service has been pretty woeful and even though they say it was resolved quickly it’s been a week since the fraud and I still haven’t had an explanation.

“This whole experience has wasted so much of my time that I haven’t really got to waste.”

The man has since asked Wonga to provide him with all the information they have on him.

The firm has since replied saying that under the data protection act they have 40 days to comply.

A Wonga spokesman said: “Any case of fraud is regrettable and we take every case seriously.

“We use our decision technology and work pro actively with the UK’s leading credit reference agencies, as well as law enforcement, to reduce the risk of fraud to an absolute minimum.

“As soon as it was confirmed that the man had been a victim of identity fraud, we ensured he was indemnified against any financial loss and that any related entries were removed from his credit file. We’re now looking into his data subject access request.”

The spokesman added that every week there are 100 fraud enquiries related to the UK banking sector.

In the last six months of 2012 there were 49 fraud enquiries related to Wonga.